Many places sell pay dirt. Some are listed in the Gold Prospectors magazine. If you are looking for something affordable try Constellationminingcompany.com . They have one pound bags for $12.50 or just the dirt for $12.00 . Three bags will fit in a flat rate box. They have very fast service. Three days to my house. You get some nice size flakes. The dirt does have a lot of silt though.

If you want to spend a greater amount of money try FELIXPAYDIRT.COM . They have good service and some chunky gold.
The GPAA store sells paydirt as well.
Do remember that these places do not give away the gold. Your ROI will vary.
Make sure you season your pan and use Jet Dry when panning. Good luck .

Welcome H Schertz,

Look back in the forums some time back, there was a lengthy conversation on your exact question.
Scott has some good suggestions
Practice panning with some very small pieces of lead or BBs if available
Go through your tails, making sure you arent leaving something behind
Most of all, have fun doin it

Bill

I would look for pay dirt that is similar to the type of dirt you plan on panning.

if you want to practice panning for gold or to test your Prospecting Equipment, pans, sluices it is better to buy 1 gram of Gold, in various sized mesh (4,6,8,12,16 etc) for about $44 / gram. You can add this gold to your own concentrates, sand, gravel, black sand blond sand, and know how much gold you should recover. This way you are paying for gold and getting gold. You are also keeping your Shipping costs very low. Why pay for 5 lbs of dirt + the Shipping costs for 5 lbs of dirt.

A good site is http://goldpaydirtreviews.com/ there you can see what the dirt looks like from various companies.

Like Bill said "Most of all, have fun"